There is a group of consistency freaks out there (like myself) who are not very fond of mixing Gtk+ with Qt applications. The reasons for this are not just graphical, but also behavioural; Gtk+ applications behave differently than Qt applications (menus are different, layout is different, etc.). Trolltech obviously can't tackle the behavioural side of this issue, but they can tackle the graphical one. This is exactly where QGtkStyle comes into play.

1.) GTK+ and GNOME developer engage in the FreeDesktop project which in fact was responsible for the Portland Project. In other words, GNOME developers do help to provide better integration. To say that only KDE developers were interested in cross-desktop integration is obviously wrong.

2.) The Tango Desktop Project was started by people how previously worked with GTK+ and GNOME projects. To say that only KDE designers are interested in visual cross desktop integration is thus also obviously wrong.

You obviously never noted these because you didn't look properly. In other words: Your view is biased.

Second, there's a rather simple explanation for the remaining difference: Trolltech makes money by selling proprietary licenses to customers. Nothing wrong with that, of course. But I guess, customer requests motivated Trolltech to provide cross desktop features -- it was not an altruistic decision.

On the other hand, the GTK+ and GNOME developers make no money by selling licenses. Consequently, they might just not be interested to spend their time doing this. Why should they if noone asks for it?

Additionally, noone would stop a group volunteers from patching GTK+ to replace dialogs like the file selector so that it matches the KDE file selector more closely. Could be a great feature for any KDE-centric Linux distribution. But it seems, no volunteers appeared yet. Maybe, the visual integration into KDE is not as important for users of GTK+ apps as you would like it to be.

GTK+ and GNOME developer engage in the FreeDesktop project which in fact was responsible for the Portland Project.

Well, that doesn't really answer what he's saying. It's been KDE and then Trolltech who've been responsible for better integration of GTK applications into KDE with QtGTK, and vice versa with what Trolltech are doing. Portland was mainly helped along by an (ex) KDE developer Waldo Bastian, and now seems to be pretty stillborne.

In other words, GNOME developers do help to provide better integration.

Not here they're not.

The Tango Desktop Project was started by people how previously worked with GTK+ and GNOME projects. To say that only KDE designers are interested in visual cross desktop integration is thus also obviously wrong.

I've never really seen the point of Tango. It came out after the Appeal and Oxygen KDE projects and is basically a new icon theme for Gnome. There's nothing really cross-desktop about it, apart from the fact that it uses the Freedesktop icon specification that a lot of KDE people contributed to - and which they call the Tango icon spec for some strange reason ;-).

But I guess, customer requests motivated Trolltech to provide cross desktop features -- it was not an altruistic decision.

Yer, and?

Consequently, they might just not be interested to spend their time doing this. Why should they if noone asks for it?

Judging from the number of people complaining about desktop and application consistency, I'd say a lot of people are asking for it.

Maybe, the visual integration into KDE is not as important for users of GTK+ apps as you would like it to be.

That's actually a pretty damning inditement regarding the current state of GTK applications. People still talk about desktop and application consistency being a perennial thorn, and there's certainly been demand to integrate KDE and Qt applications better in Gnome (Amarok and KDE's educational applications being the main ones). The standard response to that has been to create clones of Amarok and applications like Kalzium in GTK.....